SUCCESS LATE IN LIFE.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXIX, Issue 12111, 4 July 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

SUCCESS LATE IN LIFE.

Some Instances of Famo and Fortune , "Won After the Age of Forty. (./Insurers.) Mr North, blacksmith, of Leeds, drifted "to Chile, and there speculated in Government concessions. When he came home to England he was past middle age and, somewhat disappointed with the world. He had a concession for a nitrate deposit, and this •' he managed to float in the city of London, getting a fourth part of the shares.. They : were worth five shillings in the market, and, on the strength of this deal, he went for a" little spree to Monte Carlo. On his return to town a month later, the shares had risen in value, and were in strong demand at £B. This meant for him a fortune of £1,600,000 made in a single swoop—a record probably not equalled by any speculator, even in America. In the volunteers, in the city, and on the turf, Colonel North is even now remembered as on© of the notable men of our time. The large American banking house of Messrs Morgan and Drexel has for many years been represented in London by Mr J. S. Morgan, who came to" England first as a clerk. His middle-aged son was certainly quitp unknown to the general public up to a two ago, when he sudden- • ly appeared at the head of a gigantic American railway trust, and began to buy up some of the leading ship-owners of Europe. Pierpont Morgan to-day is one of the bestknown men on earth. Sir Robert Reid was forty-five years old before his big ventures began to attract public notice. He is said to own Newfoundland, and is creating a railway system to connect his colony with the main lines of the Continent. The distance across to New York is over 3000 miles, but the route to St Johns, Newfoundland, is only 1700 miles. So Sir Robert proposes to halve the Atlantic passage, and cut New York, Boston and Philadelphia out of their passenger trad*. WOBKKD HIS WAY TO THE TOPDonald Smith, a Scotchman, entered the Hudson Bay Company service at the alge of eighteen, worked his way to the top, and retired from the chief commissionership a poor man, and well over fifty yeara of age. Then he began to speculate. He found for his partner, Jim Hill, who was freighting goods into the Bed. River settlement. The two men bought up some scrap iron in the \ jShape of a partly finished and abandoned railway track, which had sent its Dutch , projectors into bankruptcy. In more capable hands the line was finished, opening up Western Canada to American trade, creating the city of Winnipeg amd the now wealthy province of Manitoba. The retired fur-trader became a millionaire, organised the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and helped in the making, of the gigantic enterprise, r Now he is Lord Strathcona, High Commissioner v for Canada, member of the War Commission, who gave • . a big hospital to Montreal endowed a university, and at a cost of £300,000 presented to the Empire the Canadian Regiment known as Strathcona's Horse. He is eigh-ty-three years old, and working harder than ever.

In 1860 a middle-aged man named Grant, ex-lieutenant in the United States army, was engaged with a waggon in hauling firewood at StLouis. Five years later Ulysses S. Grant was commanding general of the •United States army, and three years after that was ' ._;.'■ C ELECTED PBESIDENT OF THIS BEIT/HMO. ~',' Hendrik Ibsen, the dramatist, was fifty years old lief ore he published "Pillars of Society," the first of his famous plays. _ When Sir Charles Wyndham, the actor, first had his photograph taken, he appeared with a long, dark beard, dressed in his uniform as brigadier-surgeon in the army of the United States. He returned to England as a veteran of the American Civil War, and it was not until 1868 that he made his first appearance on the London stage. That is thirty-four years ago, yet now in private life he looks a middle-aiged man in the pink of condition. - Mr Shorthouse, at the age of forty-seven, was a chemical manufacturer in Birmingham. For twenty years then he had been busy in his leisure time on a novel, which he"published at last privately for the amusement of himself and his friends. Such is the original of "John Inglesant," one of the most famous novels in the English language. . • Sir Edward Clarke, the King's Counsel, was a House of Commons reporter in 1860, and four years later began his distinguished career as a barrister.

Mr Duniop invented the pneumatic tyre ; when he had passed his.sixtieth yeair, and Mr Du Cros; who handled the invention and made a big fortune, was over fifty. Lord Masham was an old man before he discovered a process for Utilising silk-waste, which made his fortune. SUCCEEDED IN THE WEST. Some twenty years ago a middle-aged man named Boggs fled to the Western States as a last hope. He had failjd as a steamship manager ', as a stock broker, silk importer and politician. .Ho appeared to be dying of consumption, and Tie was glad to get a job in Arizona on surveying work at £8 a month. He saw chances, knew that a railway must soon be wanted iii the district of Arizona where he worked, went to a town, speculated in mining shares, made some money, got help from a friend, invested £4OOO in surveys and railroad building, and then sold out to the Southern Pacific Company at £60,000. Meanwhile the desert' air had restored him to perfect health. There is a great contrast in this matter between Britishers and Americans. The Englishman, if he is going to end well, begins to end well from the first, starting a career of prosperity in youth, and carrying it on steadily to a triumphant close. vlhe American, more lively and less solid, jumps from trade to trade, speculates with reckless courage, and goes to utter ruin, only to reappear as a millionaire. There are, therefore, hundreds of examples of Americans suddenly fumousat an advanced age to one which occurs in this country.

Wit! literary men, the full powers are rarely developed under tie age of forty. Sir Walter Scott and Mark Twain, both after middle-age, were totally ruined, yet both had the vigour to rebuildi their fortunes, f

Accident has a great deal to dowith sudden eminence. Who, for instance, but for the South African war, would ever have 'heard of' Messrs Botha, Be la Rey and De Wet? Three common-place, middle-aged farmers proved in the time of stress to be -eminent leaders of men.